


The Bells

by Ghislainem70



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal - Fandom
Genre: Christmas, Edgar Allen Poe, Hannigram - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-06 05:35:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8736826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghislainem70/pseuds/Ghislainem70
Summary: Hannibal has a very special Christmas gift for Will Graham





	

  
Dr. Hannibal Lecter made a smooth stop at the police barricade. It was twilight and snowing hard, and the flashing lights gave the scene the appearance of being lit by the Aurora Borealis. Hannibal paused to let the unique beauty of the scene tantalize his senses for a suspended moment.  
  
An abrupt rap on his driver's side window interrupted his interlude. The gaunt face of Will Graham looked in. He rolled down the window, disregarding the cold. Snowflakes dusted Will's unruly hair, blew through the open window, and melted on his gloved hand on the steering wheel.  
  
"Hannibal. We didn't call you on this one." Will looked no more than usually suspicious.  
  
"No. I was coming here anyway. Something of a private tradition."  
  
Will gestured to the vast billowing white tent that suddenly expanded and filled half of the street, like a stray moon. Then he leaned on the car door casually, leaning in close, and examined Hannibal's face with that sensitivity to the nuances of emotion that always left Hannibal feeling just on the edge of exposure.  
  
"Strange tradition for Christmas."  
  
Hannibal shrugged, a slight European gesture, leaned in, breathed in Will's ineffable scent, deliciously chilled by the snow.  
  
"Edgar Allen Poe has some connections with Christmas, as a matter of fact. Most people don't realize this. I find it particularly suitable to pay my respects at this time."  
  
Will stamped his feet against the cold, but didn't move away. "Everyone else comes at Halloween, I guess."  
  
"You guess right. How long will the Poe House be closed? You couldn't, for example, make an exception, for a friend?"  
  
Will looked grim. "Especially not for a friend. Someone sprinkled anthrax. Nobody but our team goes in or out for months, probably. The Poe House will be closed for the whole Christmas season, and then some, I expect."  
  
Hannibal frowned. "What a shame. No Christmas visit to Mr. Poe, then. I do hate to break tradition."  
  
"There's always his grave," Will said seriously, trying to be helpful.  
  
It looked like Hannibal was trying to hide his disappointment at missing his odd Christmas treat.  
  
Someone called Will's name impatiently. Will turned away, absenting patting the door of Hannibal's car as a sort of farewell. An inconsequential touch, but it gave Hannibal a pleasurable sensation, imagining that Will liked to put his hands on his things.  
  
"Yes," Hannibal said, and glided away. He watched Will go to work in the silver rectangle of his rear view mirror. Will climbed into a hazmat suit and the tent swallowed him.  
  
# # #  
  
Hannibal Lecter could have stayed at home, or transacted this business from his office. But Hannibal had always found auctions to be exceptionally stimulating, and the lot he required was too important to deal with by phone, through an intermediary. No, as in hunting, an auction was about the thrill of the chase, the delicate psychological fencing of bidding. His skills as a psychoanalyst gave Hannibal a strong advantage but it was his killer instinct what was made Hannibal Lecter virtually unbeatable.  
  
It had taken several months of painstaking planning, but all of the known players with any serious financial means had been eliminated. It had been a powerful temptation to make these crimes an homage to the genius who was the impetus for his actions, but he didn't have time to make satisfactory arrangements and then, there as the undeniable fact that unless done perfectly, such crimes would be . . . gauche. And so, with regret, Hannibal acted swiftly and with only a modicum of art. To achieve his goal would be his sole satisfaction.  
  
Notwithstanding Hannibal's advance preparations, there would be other, anonymous collectors at the auction tonight, it was true. Mere mercenaries without feeling for the honor it would be to win this rare treasure. The thought made Hannibal fume. But all in all, Hannibal felt that the playing field had been adequately leveled.  
  
In fact, Hannibal had been on the brink of eliminating the last potential rival known to him, the chairman of the board of the Poe Baltimore Foundation, when the Poe Museum was closed indefinitely due to anthrax, sent to the chairman in a Christmas card, Hannibal had heard.  
  
Hannibal loved little coincidences like that.  
  
The Poe Baltimore Foundation had been forced to withdraw from the auction. Their resources would have to be marshaled to weather the storm of the anthrax incident.  
  
"We have here one of the most remarkable treasures of our sale this evening. Artifacts from the tragic life of Edgar Allan Poe rarely come on market. This Chinese Export dinner service circa 1830, each with a gilded red border with fruiting branches, includes five dinner plates. . . "  
  
Soon, Hannibal was bidding against interests from Dubai, Geneva, and Paris. But as always, his unmatched instincts and the subtle use of eye contact discouraged all rivals.  
  
Hannibal arranged for the Poe service to be delivered into his own hands that very night. As he passed through the august doors of Sotheby's, began to sing softly along to the Christmas carol that filled the air from invisible speakers:  
  
". . . _to save us all from Satan's power when we have gone astray, O tidings of comfort and joy!"_  
  
Over drinks afterward, the defeated bidders avoided mentioning the Poe dinner service. But each one of them would go to sleep that night with a curious feeling of relief -- of having escaped some unseen disaster.  
  
No doubt it was the gothic reputation of Edgar Allan Poe, and nothing more.  
  
# # #  
  
Will was meditatively shoveling snow when the mailman came. He ordinarily only ever received junk mail and had long ago been winnowed out of other people's Christmas card lists, so the red envelope caught his eye. With the dogs happily pushing through the mounds of snow he had made along the path to the house, he held the envelope, his hands awkward in thick winter gloves. The wax seal left no doubt who had sent the card. He didn't open it right away.  
  
His fingers were frozen and clumsy from wielding the snow shovel. He stoked the fire, poured himself a few finger's worth of whisky and let the dogs climb on him for a few minutes, sinking his fingers into the warmth of their winter coats. When he felt warm again he picked up the envelope and carefully pried it open. He recognized that it was rather strange, the care he took not to break the wax seal bearing the Lecter family crest. Usually he was careless about such things --- unless it was evidence at a crime scene.  
He withdrew the card, which enclosed a handwritten note in Hannibal's familiar, elegant handwriting. Unfolding the paper brought forth faint fragrance redolent of Christmastime, pine and cloves and something deeper, maybe dark chocolate and smoke.  
  
The note was an invitation, requesting the favor of Will's company for dinner on Christmas Eve, eleven o'clock.  
  
Black tie.  
  
A private car would drive him for the evening.  
  
Will put the note aside, took another sip of whisky and examined the card.  
  
It looked like a reproduction of a Victorian Christmas card. A couple wrapped in furs were riding a horse-drawn sled in the snow. The nostalgic cheerfulness and sentimentality of the card, all things considered, was somewhat jarring.  
  
Will didn't imagine himself to be familiar with every facet of Hannibal Lecter's refined and most of all highly personal aesthetics, but this did not in any obvious way seem consistent with what a Christmas card from Hannibal Lecter should look like, if he had ever bothered to imagine such a thing at all.  
  
Which, of course, he hadn't.  
  
He noted the happiness of the young people in the sleigh, pink-cheeked, smiling with rosebud lips. A boy and a girl. Almost cloying, really. Insipid. He frowned, realizing how curmudgeonly these thoughts were. Then he looked closer and noticed that the boy was wielding a whip, urging the horse on through the snow. Will gave a brief chuckle that brought the dogs swarming around him, trying to get to his face with their tongues, always driven wild at any outward sign of enthusiasm from Will.  
  
Below the picture, in an intricate, old-fashioned copperplate, was a poem:  
  
_The Bells  
  
Hear the sledges with the bells -- silver bells!  
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!  
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle  
In the icy air of night!  
While the stars that oversprinkle  
All the heavens, seem to twinkle  
With a crystalline delight;  
Keeping time, time, time,  
In a sort of Runic rhyme,  
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells  
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells._  
  
He squinted and held the card up to the firelight. There was a name below the poem.  
  
" ** _POE"._**  
  
Will gazed at the cared for a long time in the firelight, smiling softly to himself.  
  
# # #  
  
It wasn't until Will saw the glow against the snow flurries that he understood where he was being taken. The driver stopped in front of the Poe House, tented and encased in police tape and pasted with numerous vivid signs warning of anthrax hazard.  
  
The driver handed Will a packet wrapped in plastic and left him standing in the snow at the curb in his tuxedo. A figure in a white paper hazmat suit instantly approached and gestured for him to put on the suit that was in the packet. Will slipped into it with the ease of long familiarity from countless crime scenes, and followed the ghostly figure, who he recognized even in the paper suit as Hannibal Lecter, into the tent.  
  
Inside the tent was the house itself, an austere old Baltimore house where Poe had lived and worked for many years. Tonight the house was transformed. Will entered a tented space, part of the many tented divisions made by the anthrax team within the Poe House. It was somehow lit so that the space, which had been a featureless white when Will had last seen it, glowed blue. It was furnished with a few exotic articles of furniture, strangely carved, and what appeared to be pieces of Chinese porcelain in the shapes of dragons, all in shades of blue. The effect was surreal. He and Hannibal were both also turned into blue figures by the light tinting the whiteness of their hazmat suits.  
  
Will felt Hannibal watching him but he could only sense, but not see, Hannibal's eyes through the plastic mask. He gave a slow nod that he hoped Hannibal would accept as properly courteous, wanting to show his pleasure but feeling that applauding with his gloved hands would be vulgar. And speaking through the muffled mask would be a violation, he understood instinctively. No words.  
  
They turned together into another tented space, perhaps the front parlor. This was lit purple, followed by green, orange, white, and violet-lit rooms, each more dazzling than the last, until Will became almost disoriented, almost dizzy. Hannibal placed a hand at the small of his back, firm but delicate, and guided him into the final room. This was lined with black velvet draperies, and bathed in reddish light that illuminated a long table laden candelabras, set with a banquet. A grandfather clock stood at one end of the space, and it struck midnight with a dolorous clang.  
  
There were only two places set.  
  
Hannibal stripped off his hazmat suit. Will followed.  
  
"Please sit, Will," Hannibal pulled out a chair for Will, and he sat.  
  
"How are you sure it's safe to take off the suits?" Will asked.  
  
"Sometimes people are willing to share things with me. I have other friends than you at the FBI, Will. A report was issued three days ago, clearing the Poe House. The tenting will come down after Christmas, no doubt. The truth is, the powder wasn't anthrax at all. False positive at the lab, an error, apparently. Curious. The powder was, in fact, mere baking soda. A hoax. It's perfectly safe, I assure you, or I would never allow you to remove your suit."  
  
"Then why wear them at all?"  
  
"One, if anyone had observed us going in without the suits, it would have aroused suspicion. Everyone still believes the Poe House to be contaminated. Second, the colors look so much more interesting against the white paper suits. But in this room, only black tie will do."  
  
Hannibal gravely began to serve the appetizers, intricate shapes that might have been formed from shrimp. The darkness and dim red light made it hard to see. Everything looked bloody, he realized, looking at this own hand holding the delicacy.  
  
Will opened his mouth and swallowed it whole.  
  
Hannibal poured wine, black as ink.  
  
"I hope you are enjoying my little amusement," Hannibal said. "These plates, for example, are very precious to me. They were once owned by Edgar Allan Poe himself. He ate from them, just as we are tonight."  
  
Will smiled.  
  
"I doubt that he ate just the way we are. It's definitely the most unique Christmas dinner I've ever attended. And I do know what this is, you know."  
  
"Do you?"  
  
" 'The Masque of the Red Death.' The colored rooms. In America we read Poe in high school. Or at least they did back when I was in high school."  
  
"How I would have enjoyed knowing you at that age, Will. I wonder what you would have thought of me, then. I believe we would each have been very different to what we are now. That, of course, is inevitable."  
  
The huge clock tolled the quarter hour. It was now Christmas Day. The sound of the clock chime was somehow horrifying, though, and Will put his wine down.  
  
"That sound. It's so . . ."  
  
"So? What does it make you feel?"  
  
"I'm not sure. Finality, I guess. Not exactly a Christmas-y sound."  
  
"You think not? Christmas is a festival about birth. But it is also a wintertime festival, based upon very old traditions about the darkest night of winter, the solstice. The absence of light. Death. Edgar Allan Poe was trying to express something about the stages of life with his many-colored chambers, ending with the final chamber, the black-and-red room where the Red Death took them all in the end, despite Prince Prospero's fortified walls and elegant entertainments."  
  
Will allowed the delicious flavors of a cold dish, some kind of ground meat, to fill his palate, smoothed by more wine, and closed his eyes. The flavor was rich, gamey, and pungent.  
  
"You said Edgar Allan Poe had associations with Christmas that people don't appreciate. Did you mean the poem? The one on the Christmas card you sent?"  
  
"Indeed. Poe's poem had a vogue in Christmas cards for some time. But not until after Poe's death. "The Bells" was published posthumously."  
  
Will closed his eyes, shutting out the oppression of the black and red room, focusing instead on the sensuous texture of the meat dish on his tongue, the dark cherry tannins of the wine, the silky feel as the delicacy slid down his throat. Hannibal took a portion of the meaty dish for himself so that they both were tasting it, together.  
  
They were both very much alive.  
  
"What is this dish?" Will blurted. He knew that Hannibal loved to explain the intricate details of the exquisite dishes he prepared, but also sometimes resisted sharing certain specifics. It was part of his mystique, always keeping at least one card close to the vest.  
  
"Venison heart tartare. The heart of a stag. Do you like it, Will?"  
  
"Very much."  
  
"I hoped that you would. I made it especially for you. The secret is to add a bit of foie gras, and sprinkle it with smoked salt."  
  
There was a dessert, a very dark chocolate mousse, and little cups of espresso that Hannibal produced from a baroque silver machine.  
  
And then there was the sound of bells.  
  
Not the boom of the grandfather clock. This was faint, festive tinkle, like sleigh bells.  
  
"Will you come with me, Will?"  
  
They left the decadent red and black room and emerged into the clean snowy night. It felt as though they had been gone for days, for years.  
  
There was a horse-drawn sleigh waiting in the snow. The little bells on its harness jingled cheerfully as the horses tossed their heads.  
  
"Merry Christmas, Will. Will you ride with me? In honor of Poe and "The Bells?""  
  
"Merry Christmas, Hannibal." Will climbed inside. There were warm blankets. Hannibal set the horses off at a trot and they jingled along, each lost in their own thoughts as the snow-covered streets of old Baltimore glided by.  
  
# # #  
  
Will was thinking of the man he had interviewed just a few weeks ago, who had come to the FBI with a curious letter.  
  
That man was the chairman of the Poe Baltimore Foundation.  
  
The chairman was troubled by the tone of the letter, which he was worried might be a serious threat against his life. The letter advised the chairman not to attend the auction at Sotheby's, which the chairman explained would include a very rare set of china -- once owned by Edgar Allen Poe.  
  
The letter, which was written in an elegant, old-fashioned cursive hand, advised that the Foundation might even make use of the enclosed funds as it saw fit, so long as they were not used for the purchase of the Poe dinner service.  
  
Finally, the letter advised that should the chairman decide to attend the auction after all, things might not go at all well for him.  
  
This was not the first letter that the chairman had received from the letter writer. Every Christmas, it seemed, for a number of years the Foundation had received a very generous donation from the same anonymous donor, written in what seemed to be the very same handwriting as this somewhat sinister letter.  
  
Every donation had been accompanied by a respectful request for the Poe House to be closed at Christmas for a private viewing, on the stipulation that he be allowed to remain completely anonymous, and that no one else be present during his time alone in the Poe House.  
  
The Foundation had always regretfully refused. The house, being a historic property and the crown jewel of Baltimore, was too precious to risk, even for a donor as generous as the anonymous friend of Poe.  
  
Will Graham had been asked his opinion of the intentions of the letter writer. Was it a threat? Was the writer just another nutcase obsessed with Poe, albeit one with the distinction of money? Will had asked to review the letters on his own for a few days.  
  
When he was finished, Will advised the chairman to stay home from the Sotheby's auction.  
  
The very next day, a Christmas card was delivered to the chairman, filled with a white powder.  
  
The report of anthrax had the predictable result that the Poe House was shut away from the world for the entire Christmas season.  
  
It was eventually discovered that the test had been a false positive. No anthrax, after all. A hoax. The lab technicians insisted that the tests must have been tampered with, but the culprit, if there was one, remained a mystery.  
  
# # #  
  
The horses came to a stop at an intersection. Passengers, drunk with holiday cheer, honked and waved, and the horses shied and shook their heads. The bells jangled.  
  
Hannibal was listening to the sleigh bells with closed eyes. He was not in the streets of Baltimore. He was in an ancient pine forest outside his family's ancestral home in Lithuania. He could smell the trees.  
  
Hannibal's father had brought a harness festooned with bells as a Christmas present, and supervised the harnessing of his best horses to a beautiful painted sled. His father had lifted Hannibal's little sister, Mischa, up beside him and covered her warmly with furs.  
  
# # #  
  
Hannibal said, "Would you like to hear the part of 'The Bells' that they left off of the Christmas cards?"  
  
"Why not." If Hannibal wanted to tell him, he would listen. But Hannibal wasn't going to tell him what this was really all about. He knew that. Maybe someday, he would figure it all out anyway. He was trying.  
  
God help him, he couldn't help trying.  
  
Hannibal began to recite from Poe's poem, the voice that never failed to mesmerize. Against his better judgment, perhaps, Will listened.  
  
" _Oh, the bells, bells, bells!  
What a tale their terror tells  
Of Despair !  
How they clang, and clash, and roar!  
What a horror they outpour  
On the bosom of the palpitating air!  
Yet the ear, it fully knows,  
By the twanging,  
And the clanging,  
How the danger ebbs and flows."_  
  
# # #  
  
His father had handed him the whip. "Firm, but not cruel, that is the way," his father had said. "They must feel your will through the whip, not just pain."  
  
And then Hannibal was driving the horses down the snow-covered slopes through the forest, the jingling of the bells making Mischa laugh with delight, a sound more musical than the bells.  
  
Looking back, he was certain that this was the last time he had heard Mischa laugh.  
  
The distant rumble of an airplane, flying low, much too low, made the horses shy.  
  
It took everything young Hannibal had to control them, but control them he did.

 

 


End file.
